


Radio

by Icarus_Flyer



Series: Radio [1]
Category: Science-Fiction - Fandom
Genre: Alien Invasion, Graphic Description, Multi, Post Apocalypse, Strong Female Characters, Survival, Violence, long build up, science-fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 22:19:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7240735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icarus_Flyer/pseuds/Icarus_Flyer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Apocalyptic /Alien Invasion. Orson, a young man alone in a bunker meant to hold 8 survivors against the extraterrestrial threat, goes through his whole day, often listening to a lone radio broadcast describing the world's status. So maybe his view of the surface is a little skewered, sure. But a sudden intruder changed all his ideas about the world above.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

RADIO

 

Orson reached out and felt the grass between his fingers. Soft, tentacles of grass pushing up from the earth’s surface. ABOVE the surface. The wind blew at a comfortable temperature, not too moisty or cold, or dry and hot. It was a natural feeling. A natural wind.  
There were people all around him. They didn’t have names, or faces, but they were there. Suddenly, they started to splash in a nearby pool. A big body of clean, natural water.  
‘What are they doing?’ Orson thought to himself.  
The sky was black, and in all four directions large solid black walls were slowly closing in, blocking out the nonexistent yet radiant sun.  
Orson looked disapprovingly at the people in the water. He couldn’t quite focus on them, he couldn’t look directly at them.  
“Hey!” He called out to them. His heart was thudding. Why were they playing in the water?

We need that water.

Orson opened his eyes. Peacefully. There was no jolt or cold sweat. As though he had simply had his eyes closed for a long time and now just opened them, hardly an awakening.   
His bed creaked as he repositioned his body to be sitting on the edge of the bed. The thin mattress only just separating his body from the springs. The bed was only about four feet off the ground, which made Orson, who was about 6 feet tall in height, make an awkward scene when getting up. His bare feet touched the cold tiles on the floor, and he shivered. He tossed the remainder of wadded up thin covers off of his lap. He rubbed his eyes for a second then stood up.   
His room was, if you could call it a room really, it was more of a large closet. The color scheme was grey, and there were very few actual belongings in the room. There was the bed, of course, two sheets; One for under him and one for over him. A firm flat pillow, a chest under the bed for miscellaneous items, a full body mirror on the left side of the wall, as well as a dresser on the right side. Full of the same uniform.   
Orson looked at his reflection.  
His hair was brown, full, and wavy, and his eyes were green, with small speckles of light blue. He had the standard grey underwear on, and his relatively fit body was shadowed by small dark hairs. He ran his fingers through his hair, and received a certain amount of items from his wardrobe and his storage chest.   
Belongings in hand, he opened his door, and stepped out into the hallway.   
Still decorated with the same, bleak grey tiles. He walked to his left, past one door, past the bathroom, and then entered the next.  
The gym was much larger than his room, but still small in comparison to a real gym. Although there was nothing to compare it to. It wasn’t a big gym, or a small gym, it was simply the gym. Several different workout stations, all for different purposes. He got to work, after all, there was no other way he was going to stay in shape.

The bathroom was large, and parallelogram in shape. It had four sinks, and 12 stalls. 8 had toilets, and 4 had shower heads with small plastic benches, and a drain on the floor.   
He left all his belongings outside the stall, and went inside. He brought shampoo, and a well-used bar of soap. 

The smell of freshly washed hair filled the bathroom as Orson finished tying his shoes. He brushed his teeth and combed his hair, and put on a thin necklace with only one decoration; a small, diamond shaped piece of black metal, and then he stepped out, returning all the other stuff to his room. He walked out of his room again, and, again, walked to the left. He entered the library. A long hallway. The sides being shelves full of books, the end of the hallway had a door that led to the laundry room, on the very end of the right wall held a door that led to the gardens, which Orson harvested from twice a week. The stasis of the room took care of everything else.   
Orson flipped through the books and the books and the books, until he found the one he was looking for.  
“The Interpretation of Dreams”   
Orson had read many of these books before, mostly in the fiction and fantasy section. There were some comic books and space operas he had yet to finish, for one of two reasons. Either they were really bad and he just couldn’t continue with it, or it was so good that he couldn’t bear to finish it. Either way, it comforted him that there were stories he hadn’t finished.  
He closed the door behind him, and made a right, deeper into the hallway, the hallway curved, until it was facing forward. He hugged the left wall until it opened up to where he was in a large circular room, with a large circle table in the middle, with a radio inserted into the table, and two semi-circle couches that could hold 16 people. He laid across the couch, resting his head on the arm rest. And began flipping through the content of the book, trying to interpret his sleeping world.  
Almost an hour passed, and he got up to get something to eat. He walked into the kitchen, which was connected to the lounging area. He got a small bag of dried asparagus, and a small bottle of water. He sat in the kitchen, eating with his things sprawled across the table.   
He was getting pretty into the book, distracted from the initial purpose of getting it out of the library, when suddenly the room next to him released a loud buzzer noise. Orson immediately dog-eared the page, and closed it, and sealed the bottle of water and food and put them up. He went back into the social area and placed the book aside, and pulled out a shelf from the desk, and grabbed a pen and a notebook. The shelf was full of them. He flipped to the last page he was on, and below yesterday’s entry, wrote: Entry Number 3487.   
The radio in the center of the table suddenly came to life, making a swishing static noise for a few seconds, but eventually whirring into legible statements.

‘…Dear survivors, this has truly been a day for human victory! The Northwestern Mara tribes have retreated into the ocean, and our navy are scouting for their nest, so we can destroy it. I will now give you the pleasure of listening to the Central Dakota Symphony. This has been Joseph Li Marton, on ASG Broadcast. Have a good day, survivors, and I’ll see you in 2 hours for my next report’ The radio suddenly made a switching noise, and the background noise that accompanied Joseph Li Marton’s disembodied voice was suddenly replaced by a relatively large sounding orchestra playing the standard tune when humans scored a victory.  
Orson looked at his notebook, he had written everything down, word to word. As the music played he began to sketch a small scale portrait of the Mara retreating into the ocean.  
The Mara. He looked at previous drawings and entries. Described as large metallic beasts, with heat ray guns, and spiked knuckle fists. Large elastic tails that are strong enough to wrap around a man and crush his ribs. If that wasn’t scary enough, there are large tank like vehicles that walk on four bulky legs, with heat ray guns on top. One time, the show even described it doing something like the tank, poddish shape thing splitting in half like two sandwich buns and taking in a human solider trying to crawl into a large crack in a building, and closing quickly, crushing the soldier’s legs. Orson took the notebook and closed it, putting it back in the shelf with the pen. Then he got out the book and began reading where he left off again.   
After a while, the music that cued that the show was about to begin again suddenly started playing, and Orson put up his book and got out the journal and pen again, and waited eagerly for the voice to return.  
‘…Dear Survivors, I regret to inform that the naval ship that pursued the retreating Mara was sunk by what appeared to be a large scale heat blast from underwater…’  
A lump formed in Orson’s throat, but he shook it off and continued to write.  
‘…The military has yet to hear of any survivors, and regrettably cannot wait due to the Mara’s constant state of migration. I regret to inform any family that the military has decided to bomb the nest while we know it’s definite location. This has been Joseph Li Marton, on the ASG Broadcast. I think it best, we cancel the rest of today’s broadcast, I’ll see you all tomorrow morning, bright and early…’ The radio suddenly clicked off and was replaced by a somber tune played by two trumpets.  
Orson listened for a few seconds, but eventually turned the radio off.   
Orson tried to think of something to scribble down as a form of respect for the fallen soldiers, but couldn’t come up with anything.  
He simply closed the book and returned it and the pen back to the drawer.  
His entire daily routine would be thrown off.  
Usually he would sit here and listen to one more report, write it down, and then he would go work out again, then come back and eat lunch while listening to another report, then he would read until the next report, which would be the last one of the day, then he would go to the garden where an advanced audio based AI would teach him basic American customs. 5 reports a day, which, today, has been shortened to two.  
What was he going to do to fill in all those spots?  
He looked at the book.  
‘I guess this is all I can do from here.’  
The rest of his day was pretty smooth, but different. Not often does Orson’s plans go awry, but it’s not like he doesn’t know how to deal with them. The Customizable Year-long Learning Device, or, CYL for short, teaches him that every respectable American citizen has a schedule they keep to, but it also teaches them to be flexible. And this was Orson being flexible.  
Instead of waiting for the next ASG report, he studied the dream book intensively. And after another workout routine, a change of clothes, his lunch of dried tomatoes, a slice of wheat bread, and plums, he came to the basic conclusion that his dream was all about wanting to go outside, into the surface world. He came to terms with that. He’s always wanted to go out into the world, he’d never seen it after all. Only read about it in stories, and seen some pictures in books. He put the book back in its rightful place in the library. He was satisfied, he had learned a lot today.   
He went into the garden. It was a good size, about the same as the gym, but more of a square shape. He walked down the tile path to the middle, where there was a small circle for him to sit. He sat down, pencil and journal, a different journal with a different purpose. He pressed the button on the tile in front of him, and up popped up a screen, which rose on a metal pole, until it was face-to-screen with Orson’s sitting body. The screen came to life, and a robotic male voice began to speak.  
“Hello-Orson- how are you today?” Its speech was choppy, but it was incredibly advanced for it to be a standard NHA bunker AI.  
“I’m good. I got a lot done today.” Orson responded, clearing his throat.  
“Good. Today, we’re going to be learning about government. Are you prepared?”  
Orson clicked his pen, and opened his book.  
“Yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

Orson stood at the base of a tower. A large serpentine beast had wrapped around the large stone cylinder, and at the top of the tower, was a statue of a woman with a witch’s hat. The dragon licked the statue, but it’s tongue was so gritty and rough the witches head came off and crashed into a nearby pool.   
Orson ran over to the pool to try and salvage the water, but instead, it became dull and muddy, and solidified. He was too late. The dry mud cracked as a tree began to grow from it, blossoming in quick succession.   
Even though the witch was dead, and the water was ruined, at least the leaves would protect him from the harsh sun.

He woke up. As if he was underwater all night and suddenly went above the surface and was instantly dry. In a different world.  
As he repositioned his body, the bed cracked.  
He got up, his shoulder was sore for some reason. He reached up to try and stretch it, when suddenly, a loud popping noise came from his shoulder, and he yelped.  
He read about this. He must have slept on arm weird and then air bubbles formed between the joints and when he stretched they released.  
It was sore for a second, but now that he relaxed it somehow felt better than it did before. He looked at himself in the mirror. His face trapped in an expression of a softened frightened state, still confused on the outside, but he looked at himself closely.  
He stretched out all of his limbs and his back and found that more places started to pop. His body tingled. It was a nice sensation. He decided he would add that to his list of things to do in the morning when he woke up: Pop stressed joints.  
He continued his routine as usual.  
Bathroom, workout, shower, he got the dream book again. This last dream was radically different, and it required a second look and analysis. 

Orson had just finished writing the third report, and was getting ready to go work out again, when suddenly there was a loud, anxious buzzing sound from the front of the bunker.  
Orson stared at the direction of the sound. Everything went silent for a second, and Orson felt afraid to breath, when suddenly it blared again  
BRRRRRRREZZ  
Orson got up from the couch, and walked out of the door, into the hallway again. The library to his left and the storage room to his right. But to his front. Right in front of him, was a long hallway, which went up at a slant.  
The door  
It started buzzing frantically.  
BRZ BRZ BRZ BBBRRRRRRRRREEEEEZZ  
He ran up the slanted hallway, and in the middle of one of the long, frustrated buzzes, he opened the first door. There were doors, three if you count the one that closes at the extended hallway outside of the entrance/exit, which closes when you open the first door. The first, solid grey door.  
The buzzing abruptly stopped when the third door slammed down, and the first one opened, leaving only a thick layer of glass between Orson and…  
This person.  
She was breathing heavily. She had dirt on her face, her hair was black, and greasy, and short. According to the many history books Orson had read, girls usually had long hair. One time he read a culture based book and he read that girls that cut their hair were “Lashing out”, but the book also said that vaccinations caused autism, which Orson thought highly unlikely.  
After the girl got over the initial shock of the third door closing, she pressed the buzzer again, and knocked on the thick glass door, and started talking, but Orson couldn’t hear what she was saying.  
Orson thought back to what CYL taught him about outsiders, but his mind was so scrambled at the moment.  
He placed his thumb on the finger print scanner, and the hallway pocket she was in started to whirr, the vents cleaning all of the dirt and filth that it contained, and it shocked the girl for a second, but then she just started starring at Orson again, who nodded at her reassuringly. He had learned that it was a sign that was meant to comfort others, and then he pressed in the digits that opened the door  
07172056  
The glass door slid open.  
They stood there. The only barrier between them now was air.   
“Thanks” She said.  
“Uh, you’re welcome.” Orson looked at her.  
“I’ll just wait until those punks go away, and then I’ll be out of you and your people’s hair.”  
A dozen things went through his head at once, and as she turned around to sit in the outside hallway he sputtered something and grabbed her arm.  
She suddenly yanked away and jumped away from him, grabbing something on her belt.  
“Wait wait! I’m sorry!” He raised his hands.  
She looked at him with eyes that reminded Orson of a comic he once read as a child. A character in that story never blinked. She was a super villain, and she could see into a person’s mind.  
Orson felt violated for a split second, and wondered if she could hear his thoughts?  
“I’m sorry,” He said again.  
“But uh, a few things,” He said. The girl’s face remained in a state of alarm, but it shifted slightly. Her eyes squinted a little less, and her head tilted a fraction of an inch.  
“The uh, Bunker is designed to only open and close once a month. It has to filter all the dirt in the air and things of that nature.” He said. The girl looked at him with disbelief now.  
“I have to stay here? With a bunch of…” he looked at Orson’s grey jumpsuit.  
“Uhm, I’m the only one here.” He said.  
“What?” She said softly, almost in a whisper.  
“I’ve been here by myself since I was 3, all the others left to join the military.” He said with full confidence.  
The girl let out a small, shocked laugh.  
“The military? Who told you that?” She asked.  
“Uhm, ASG radio broa-“  
“Holy s**t, you have a radio in here? In this little bunker?” She asked, in awe. Her guard lowered for a little, and looked past him a few times.  
“Yeah, well, it’s connected to the table in the social area, if it leaves the table it won’t work anymore.” He explained.  
She cursed under her breath in a word Orson had never heard before.  
“So…I can’t get out of this place for another month…?” She asked.  
“No. Sorry, but uh, it takes a month to reboot the whole ventilation system stuff, I haven’t gotten around to figuring it all out.”  
“Gotten around to it?” She phrased back at him. Orson didn’t realize what he said wrong.  
“You plan on figuring it out? I would just let it do its thing.” She said bending her neck to see the recurring grey tile décor.  
“Do you want me to, uh, show you around and stuff?” He asked.  
She looked at him for a long time, then finally let go of the thing on her belt.  
“Sure.” He walked past him, looking around, as he closed the glass and metallic door.  
He looked at the small specks of dirt on his hand from where he grabbed her arm.

Orson watched in awe as she ate slice after slice after slice of bread with a small amount of berry jam on each slice, downing the small bottles of water.  
“So uh, who were those guys after you?” He asked her.  
“Who, The Phantoms? They’re just a bunch of gang thugs I got mixed up with and then didn’t pay them back for whatever.” She explained. Her vowels had to dodge and avoid all the food in her mouth as she talked. Often making her words slurry and sloppy, Orson had to fill in some of her sentences with his imagination the best he could.  
“There are gangs?” He asked, fascinated. He had a single slice, with not much eaten off of it.  
“Yeah, a bunch. The Phantoms are pretty big, but not as big as like, I don’t know, the New Monsters, or The Risen. They eat up and absorb smaller gangs. The Risen is almost big enough to be considered a small nation by now I’m sure.”  
“Why are there so many gangs out there? Why doesn’t the military do anything about it?”  
“Why don’t you stop goin on about the damn army? There ain’t no military out there.” She said, pointing at his slice.  
“Can I get that?” She asked, wiping the jam off her face with her forearm.  
“What do you mean by that? The military is fighting off the Mara.” He slid the toast to her.  
“What? What kinda station you listening to?” She downed the last slice.  
“The ASG broadcast.” He said. Almost in answering, the radio in the social room in the next room over buzzed and the girl grabbed her gun and stood up quickly, looking around.  
“What the hell was that?” She looked into the next room.  
“It’s just the radio. “He said, standing up. He walked over into the next room, and got out the journal and pen, and waited for the man to start speaking.  
‘Dear Survivors, this Joseph Li Marton speaking, the military has subdued one of the Maras, and are currently taking it apart to see how it functions…-‘The man continued speaking, and Orson wrote down every word obediently. The girl looked at him with curiosity and a strange look of slightly parted lips and a scrunched brow. She walked around to be behind the couch, and looked over his shoulder.  
“Entry 3490?” She asked, looking at the number of the entry. All of the words scribbled down and all the doodles and paragraph after paragraph. As the man continued speaking, she walked around to sit next to him and pulled out the drawer, pulled out a book from the stack opposite of the one he grabbed the book he was currently writing in from.  
“How many of these have you filled up?” She asked, as the broadcast ended and music started to play.  
“Books? Uh, so far about 5. I found the broadcast about a year ago now, and I’ve been recording them ever since. I figured the people of the next generation would need like textbooks and stuff.” He said, actually saying his ideas out loud seemed, strange. He’d never talked this much in a day, ever. It was…Refreshing, somehow.  
“ …Listen, bud, there is no military. And if there is, they’re probably just like you, in some deep underground fancy hole, waiting out this invasion thing. Because they certainly aren’t up there with us.”  
“ ‘Us’? “Orson didn’t believe a word this girl was saying. By his logic, she was probably in shock, just in an area where the military wasn’t yet. All of the gangs she was talking about and probably even a Mara attack probably had some effect on her mental health and ability to reason.  
“ The Survivors. The deviants, the people who were too stubborn to go down when all else seemed lost.“ She tried to explain. This kid just didn’t seem to get it. She shook her head.  
“Why do you only use one mattress?” She asked.  
Orson looked at her, surprised by the sudden change of topic.  
“I don’t…understand the question.” He said.  
“There are 8 empty rooms back there. Yet you only use one mattress. One pillow. Those things can’t be comfortable.   
“I mean, if I did, how would I explain it to people who come in for refuge? That I had their blankets?” He asked.  
“Dude, you own this place. You would give them a pillow and they’d be grateful, besides, you’ve been here for…?”  
“My whole life.” He answered. Her head fell and her eyes closed. Was she disappointed in Orson’s response?  
“How old are you?” She asked, slowly, as if she were an AI trying to teach Orson a simple topic when he was younger.  
“ I’m 17.”  
“ Okay, you’ve been here by yourself for a really long time then. Your bunker-mates left when you were 3, that means you’ve been here by yourself for…” She suddenly stopped, looking into the air, flicking the air as she counted on her fingers.   
“ 14 years.” He said.  
“ Shut up, I know,” She snapped at him, and he flinched away from her. Why did everything he say make her angry? Is it because of exposure to the sun? Does Vitamin D make you more aggressive?  
“You’ve been here by yourself for 14 years, and I’m the only one to ever show up.” She said, in a completed style of sentence.  
Orson just looked at her, expecting her to say more.  
“You…There aren’t going to someday be 7 people buzzing at your big metal door asking for refuge. That’s not realistic.” She said.  
“But it could happen.” He added.  
“It won’t. Look, let’s do this.”

The day had been long, and Orson’s schedule was all kinds of messed up, and this is how it was ending.  
“That is the furthest thing from a bed I’ve ever seen.”  
“You ain’t seen nothin’. This is just the beginning. I have to entertain myself for a month, so yeah, you’re going down with me.” She said.  
“What do you call this thing?” He asked, looking at the monstrosity.  
“A pillow fort.” She said. She had taken every mattress, sheet, and pillow from three other rooms and made Orson’s bed into some huge, fluff trap. She did the same with her bed in the room next door.  
“I’ll see ya tomorrow, alright, kid?” She asked, walking past him.  
“Wait,” He said, stepping to the side so she could go, but looked her expectantly.  
“What is it kid? I’m tired.”  
“What’s your name?” He asked.  
“What?” She looked at him.  
“Your name.” He repeated. She looked at him for a few seconds.  
“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Goodnight, kid.” She closed his door.  
Orson’s heart fell light. Sometimes he would have memories of when people were in the bunker with him, and his heart would feel heavy somehow, but as he carefully removed his clothes until he was only in the standard grey underwear, and took off the black diamond necklace and placed it carefully on the dresser’s top surface, and he crawled into the strategically created “Pillow Fort”, his heart felt…Light.  
The next day, he would not study the Dream interpretation book at all, because Orson could have sworn that only half a minute into the castle of cotton, he fell into a state outside of the world. A dreamless, nightmare-less, careless state, where no matter how deep Orson’s body sunk into the mattress, he could not feel the springs underneath.  
But the comfort of his sleep dwindled in comparison to what really made his heart light.  
There was someone there to tell him goodnight.


	3. Chapter 3

Orson woke up slowly, his consciousness crawling out of a cloud on earth. Orson faded in and out of being asleep, and he stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, before getting up, and, satisfyingly, the bed did not creak. He stood up, becoming dizzy from getting up so fast, and it took him a second to regain himself. He stretched out, and popped the joints that cooperated. Some joints popped that didn’t pop yesterday morning, and some didn’t pop that did previously. Obviously this morning stretch thing was going to be inconsistent.   
He looked at himself in the mirror. He still looked groggy.   
He made a lap around the bunker, and the girl was nowhere, but the door to the room she claimed was still closed, so she must still be asleep. He didn’t blame her, the outside world is probably amuck with dangers, so now that she was safe he could understand why she would want to stay in bed longer than most.  
Most being, of course, himself.  
His morning workout routine felt somehow sluggish, but satisfying. However, when he took a shower, it felt cleansing. Usually showers are just the morning routine. People are supposed to take showers, but showers after a night in a pillow fortress somehow felt…Better. He looked at his hand. There was still a small mark of dirt from where he touched the girl’s arm yesterday afternoon. He gently rubbed his palm, and the dirt disappeared, leaving a trail of dark water falling off the puddle forming in his hand, and escaping down the drain.  
He had just finished the second entry, when he heard a door open in the room hallway. Orson quietly felt very good about this. There was another person here with him, for the first time in a long time. He listened as she walked to the shower, and the water came to life. Orson, for the first time in as long as he can remember, wasn’t in control of the showers. Eventually, after a very long shower, the sound of hard footsteps on the tiles leading up to the social area was accompanied by a deep sigh on her part. Orson looked at the doorway as she walked in.  
Her hair was wet and messy, she was wearing the standard grey pants, and black socks, and black shirt. But the white shoes and grey over shirt were missing.   
“Do you not know where the rest of it is?” Orson asked her, she was holding a small towel to her hair and squinted at him.  
“The uniform?” He continued.  
“Why do I need to wear shoes in this place? Or an over shirt? And why’re you still copying that guy’s stuff?” She asked walking into the kitchen.  
“What’s for breakfast?” She called, not giving Orson a change to answer any of her questions.  
“I see you found the shower,” Orson said, getting up and following her into the kitchen, his hand twitching towards her when she started to open small, air tight bag of dry crackers, and she cracked open a small bottle of water. She noticed his lack of comfort at her tampering with the food.  
“What’sa matter with you?”  
“Usually, I uh, don’t eat breakfast.” He said. She gained the same look on her face when she first saw him writing down the radio broadcast. Slightly parted lips, a scrunched brow.  
“It depletes the food too fast” He droddled on. The girl’s shoulder’s fell and Orson felt like she was disappointed in him again.  
“This place is designed to hold 8 people right?” She asked. Orson nodded. He made that very clear yesterday during his tour of the bunker.  
“Okay, so there’s enough food to help 8 people for a very long time, with the garden replenishing some of that right?” She asked, in that same robotic voice. For a moment Orson wondered if she was secretly a robot posing as a human, but then he realized she was speaking slowly on purpose. Why?  
He nodded his head.  
“Alright, there’s only two of us, see?” She gestured to her and then him, then back to her.  
“We can eat like abunch more than we’re ‘supposed’ to, and still be fine for a really long time.” She said, raising her eyebrows in expectance for him to understand.   
Orson looked at her for a second, letting this soak in, then he felt something in his chest, and his eyes stung for a second. He stepped out of the kitchen quickly, putting up the radio notebook and getting his learning one.  
“Kid,” The girl said from the kitchen, sighing. He didn’t respond, even though it made him feel like a bad person, he just walked into the hallway and made his way to the library.  
“Hey, kid!” The girl started following him and Orson began walking quicker. He walked into the library, and down to the end of the hallway and turned left into the small garden, and walked to the center and began setting up his premature learning session.  
The girl, outside, began knocking on the door.  
“You can’t come in!” He called to the door.  
“You have food, and no food can come into the garden!” He said matter-o-factly.   
“Chilo.” She said. Was this another word that he didn’t understand.  
A long pause of silence came before she something else.  
“I promised I would tell you my name. It’s Chilo.” She spoke again.

He opened the door to see she didn’t have actually have any food with her.  
“What is your name?” She asked him.  
“…Orson.” He said.  
Chilo let a bubble of amusement escape her chest.  
“What?” He asked, confused, as always with this girl.  
“Chilo and Orson. It’s just not your typical cast of misfits. She raised the black undershirt to reveal her hip.  
“What is that?” He asked, looking at reveal.  
“A promise,” She traced the noose tattoo.  
“One day as a little kid me and my brother were attacked by some thugs. They killed my brother, and took all of my stuff. The older I got and the more I realized how the people in this world were terrible, the more I realized that the reason those thugs didn’t kill me is because they had different plans in store for me. I made a machine that made ink marks in your skin that never went away, and I practiced on the thugs I did a beating on. I hardly killed ‘no one, usually just left ‘em unconscious. I would practice my art on them, so when they woke up they would get the sloppy practice results, a message no anyone who messes with me, and a hell of scarring pain when they woke up. If anyone comes up to me with a noose tattoo on their forehead I know I dealt with them in the past and I should run like hell ’cause they sure remember me. Eventually I got good enough to do this to myself.”  
“Why would you want to give yourself a permanent mark of something so…Dark?” He asked.  
“If it’s on someone else, it’s a message. When it’s on me, it’s a promise. I’ll never lose, and if I do,” She reached behind her and pulled a rough looking gun out of her pants.  
“They’ll never get the satisfaction of doin’ me in themselves.” She said.  
“Is that why those people were chasing you? Outside the bunker?” He asked. She nodded.  
“I marked one of theirs. They wanted payback. There were just too many of them.” She shrugged, and put the gun back in the back of her pants, which made Orson much more comfortable.   
“Worked out okay for me I guess.” She looked around the garden.  
“You love your notebooks, don’t cha?” She saw the notebook, pen, and CYL patiently waiting to begin the social session.  
“It’s like school, for me.” He explained, expecting her to understand. To Orson’s knowledge, school was a normal thing.  
“School? That’s a thing here?” She asked, taken a back.  
“ Yeah, it’s designed to teach the children of the bunker basic social skills and advanced knowledge of the world.” He explained.  
“Wow, this place is dreary. Is there any paint? I think the grey is making me want to paint the walls red.” She looked around.  
Orson looked at her, trying to understand. Does grey turn into red easily?   
Chilo noticed his confusion.  
“Oh. You probably don’t know what that means. Y’know…” She pressed two fingers to her temple with her thumb up, then pressed her thumb down and made a weird noise with her mouth, pretending to shoot herself.  
Orson took a step back.  
“Why would you say that?” He asked, looking at her like she just set the place on fire.  
“No, no, kid it’s a joke. I was being sarcastic-“She saw the look on his face then sighed.  
“I’m sorry, that isn’t funny. I gotcha. I won’t say stuff like that anymore.” She looked around.  
“Listen, I’m sorry that I kinda turned your world upside-down, but we just gotta deal with each other for a month, then I’ll be outta your hair.” She said looking around.  
“But I’m sure you have a lot to teach me, and I have a lot to teach you. We’ll help each other out, so when it comes time for us to part ways, we’ll be better than we were before, deal?” She asked.  
Orson imagined what life would be like in a month, after she was gone, and he could back to his daily routine.  
“Okay, deal.” He said, turning around, but she grabbed his shoulder, and turned him around.  
“Lesson one,” She said, looking him in the eyes intensely. Orson noticed she had a scar on her lip, a tiny, permanent scratch.  
“Stop taking lessons from a robot, until I go of course. It’s kinda creepy. Instead of taking lessons from it, once a day, we’re gonna sit on the couch, and I’m gonna tell you about my travels across the Expanse.”  
“The expanse?” He asked.  
“It’s what the folk that travel around it call the big wasteland. It’s a whole lot of nothing, mostly, but it’s full of stuff to do, and I’ve done a lot of it. Instead of learning what life was like before the invasion, I’m gonna teach you what life is like outside, in the now.”  
Orson thought about it for a long time.  
“Alright.”


	4. chapter 4

It's been a week since Chilo arrived in the bunker, and already so much has changed.  
Orson’s room has never looked more bizarre. Four thin mattress’ on one bed, stacked on top of each other. Orson has found that four pillows is just too much, but 2 is just right, so he put the other two on the two couches in the social area. As well as one of the bed sheets over the circle table inside of it. Chilo used a knife she brought to cut around the radio, and she put the circle of excess cloth on the table in the kitchen, and called it a napkin, but really there was just nowhere else to put it. He also put one of the sheets on the table in the library. He still had 3 sheets left, so he put it on the floor in his room, to mimic a carpet. The more he walked into his room and saw it like this, so radically different, the more he got to accept that it was his room, and not just a room.   
He got up and retrieved the black diamond necklace from his dressers surface, and put it on.

‘Orson’ A memory called out to him, like someone in a far off place. He could only sometimes recall the sound of that person’s voice.  
‘This is a very special necklace, I want you to have it, so you won’t forget us. We’ll be back when the job is done, never lose sight of what’s important.’  
What is important?

“Well lookie at you.” Chilo walked into the library. She always wakes up and showers a few hours after Orson.   
Orson looked up from the book he was reading.   
“I see you took my advice about your clothing style.” She looked at him with almost a look of accomplishment. A few days ago, she scolded him on wearing the same thing his whole life, washing loads of the same black shirts and grey uniforms, only going to the storage room to get more if his become too big. She told him to mix it up a little.  
Orson didn’t wear the white shoes anymore, at first it was because he didn’t want to rip the sheets on his floor, but then he realized it was much more comfortable to not wear shoes at all, by watching Chilo. So now he just wears the standard black socks. He also rolled up the hems of his grey pants twice. He leaves his grey over shirt’s top 4 buttons undone, so his black shift is shown, and also rolls up the grey sleeves to just before his elbows.   
“Thank you.” Orson looked down at his clothes. He was proud of himself.  
His outfit wasn’t nearly as original as Chilo’s, however. After she washed the outfit she was wearing when she first arrived, she also made some renovations. A ragged jean vest, that’s been through a lot, but looks a lot better now that it’s clean, she replaced her previous undershirt with the standard black shirt found in the bunker. She also wears the standard black socks, but has her own shorts. Baggy, just below her knees, ragged and black.   
She walked over to him, and looked over his shoulder, and turned the book over to see its title.  
“What word is that?” She asked him.  
“Hamlet. It’s by William Shakespeare. It’s kind of confusing.”  
“Yeah I’m not sure who that is.” She said, looking at all of the books. She walked over to the comic book section.  
“He was apparently a really big deal before the invasion.” Orson continued reading.  
“So he was alive in like, the 2000’s?” She asked, looking for the book with the least words.  
“Nope, the 1600’s, it says here.” Orson was looking in the back of the book, where there was some info on the author.  
“How does someone stay a big deal for like abunch of centuries like that.” She stated, more than asked. She didn’t really care. She found a comic book about a girl who could turn into a wolf at night and eats corrupt government employees and rude diner waitresses.   
“I guess people thought his stories were really good. I think they’re pretty confusing.” He closed the book.  
“Have any more weird dreams?” She asked, flipping through the bulk of the pages.  
“Not really, not any that I can remember, anyways.” He said, putting the book back in its previous spot in the shelves.   
“Hey, come’ere” Chilo suddenly urged him over, and pointed at the story she started halfway through.  
“What does this say?” She pointed at a word in one of the narration bubbles.  
“Inferno.” He said. She repeated it slowly.  
“I think it means hell, and sometimes it’s used to describe really big fires I’m pretty sure.” He explained, tracing the illustration of the wolf-girl trapped in a forest fire.  
“Yea I think one of the character’s betrayed her and set the forest on fire.” She explained. She hadn’t really been paying much attention to the story, just the pictures. She picked this one because it was a limited edition fully colored one.  
“So reading isn’t really important up there? On the surface?” Orson asked, watching as she skipped over words she couldn’t read unless they looked important.  
“Nah. Neither is writing. Nobody got the time to sit there and read books for fun. So most of the time you just kinda have’ta guess what most of the words mean. I learned a little from my brother and some on the road, but, eh.” She shrugged, closely examining a scene where the wolf-girl bites into an animal control man’s neck. The comic artist drew it so that it seemed as though the blood splattered against the pages.  
Suddenly, in the other room, the radio buzzed.  
They both looked at each other.  
“I’m just going to listen.” Orson insisted.  
“If you go in there, I’m gonna go in the garden. Unsupervised.” She said, raising her eyebrows.  
Orson looked at the door to the garden, and then to the door to the open hallway.  
“Think of the strawberries, kid.” Chilo clicked her tongue.  
Orson pressed his lips together hard, and heard the music to signal that the show was about to begin started. He let out an exasperated sigh and shoved a chair in front of the garden door and then dashed out of the library to the social area.  
“Childish!” He heard her yell.  
His leg bounced impatiently as he listened to the show broadcast, almost not being able to pay attention to the show itself.  
‘…and found that the strange cells that charge the Maran weapons are a result of atomic fission, but how they were able to achieve such a large scale amount of power from such a small source is unknown. Military scientists believe that they are using a particle unknown to our social system. This has been Joseph Li Marton on ASG broadcast, I’ll see you all in a little bit with more news on the constant effort against the struggle to reclaim our big blue rock…’ Orson cut off the music and immediately ran back to the garden.  
“Chilo!” He opened the door quickly, looking around.  
“Calm down, champ.” She said. She was gathering berries and nuts in a pouch she made by pulling up the end of her shirt.  
“You’re just…Gathering berries?” He asked. He felt silly and maybe even guilty for thinking she had volatile motives.  
“Yeah, man. Hey, by the way, do you think there’s enough spare parts in the storage room to make a still?” She asked, picking off another berry.  
“A still what?” Orson said, thinking she just got distracted by her berry picking and didn’t finish her sentence.  
“Oh my god, everything goes right over your head doesn’t it?” She said, looking at him with that same disapproving face, except this time it’s more of an amused look.  
“What do you…?” He started making the face that she made whenever she was confused by something he was doing, unknowingly picking up on her little gestures.   
“A still is something that like, heats something up to make it steam, then cools it back down to like, turn the steam back into a liquid. “She said, holding a particularly juicy looking berry above her mouth, then pressed it until it gave in to pressure and the juice and fruit on the inside escaped and found its way to her.   
“If you do this process with some fruits in just the right way, you can make alcohol.” She seemed satisfied by his offended look.  
“Alcohol? But- “  
“Yeah, yeah. I know, it’s bad for you.” She said, walking past him.  
“But don’t you want to experience it? It’ll be done around right before I go, you can choose to drink it or not, and if you choose to, you won’t have regretted not doing it.”   
Orson actually somehow found logic in that.  
“How was the show?” She asked him, as they both exited the garden.  
“It was alright, we’re learning how their weapons work.” He explained, grabbing the wolf-girl comic book that Chilo neglected to return to the shelves.   
“Hey, can you bring that to my room with me? Thanks. “She said, continuing to walk until she reached the closed hallway door, then looked at Orson expectantly. Both of her hands were occupied with holding her shirt.   
Orson suddenly had a realization for a single moment, and, comic book in hand, took a deep breath before walking over to open the door for her.  
He was coexisting with someone. Someone radically different. Someone who waited for him to open the library door, but used her foot to open her room. Her incredibly messy room, with sheets and clothes and personal belongings everywhere, despite there being a dresser and storage chest under the bed. This was simply her habitat.   
Although, Chilo doesn’t carry her gun around with her anymore, and she asks before getting food.  
And Orson doesn’t listen to every single show, nor does he write down every detail. Usually only if something of note, or a highlighting phenomenon happens.   
According to a psychology book Orson once studied up on a bit, a person is most like the 5 people they hang around most. So with only 2 people, it’s no wonder they’ve started to pick up on each other’s actions and the like.

Orson’s days were usually short and bland, like an ice chip. But now it’s more like every day he sees new adventures in the same old grey tiles, and the berry jelly somehow tastes better, and the showers are more refreshing, and his dreams aren’t scary anymore, and his bones pop when he stretches, like fireworks in his shoulder blades.  
He loved coexisting with someone.


	5. Chapter 5

“What’s wrong, kid?” Chilo asked Orson as he entered the gym. She was halfway done with her booze still, and Orson realized this was the first time she was up and about before him. This was because he did not sleep much the previous night, and obviously it was noticeable.  
“I don’t know…It was weird. You know how the band will start playing after every show? Like, lots of instruments and the type of music varies depending on how the show ended?” He asked her. She nodded her head slowly, trying to understand how this was directly affected to his sleeping patterns. Also, she wasn’t looking for an explanation, just a ‘Yes, I just didn’t get much sleep last night’ would have sufficed.   
“Well, yesterday, I left the radio playing for a while after the show ended, and it just plays a bunch of different songs on a loop, and I heard a song I really liked that I’ve never heard on the station before, and when I was trying to sleep, I could remember some parts, and I kept trying to remember the rest and it kept playing in my head.” He said.  
“You worded that really weird, but I know exactly what you mean.” She stood up, wiping her brow.  
“Are you telling me you’ve never had a song stuck in your head before?” She asked.  
“Um, I guess I have. But I would just like hum it or whatever, but it’s never kept me up for that long before.” He tried explaining again.  
“Ah, I think I gotcha. Say, is there anything in this place that runs off of replaceable batteries, and isn’t part of the bunker’s power source?” She asked. Orson nodded his head.  
“The temperature setting device.” He said.  
“There’s a temperature setting device? I can crank the heat up past ‘Moist frost at the a*s-crack of an icy hell’s sunset’?” She asked, suddenly very interested.  
“I…uh…” He looked at her with his version of her confused face.  
“Sorry, it’s just like, kinda cold in this place, all the time. Especially with the grey tiles. Sometimes at night I’m tempted to go sleep in the garden because it’s so much warmer in there.” She said, standing up, wiping the dust off her hands after working with the spare parts in the storage room. Well, half of it. The deeper part is sealed off by a door that only a password and finger print can open.   
“Is there a spare? Like, one just in case the one you already have breaks and you can just replace it?” She asked.  
Orson thought for a second, then his eyes lit up.  
“Yes, there is one I think!” He said, urging her to follow him.

The accessible part of the storage room was full of boxes that were full of spare parts, spare clothes (Which included spare bras, which Chilo took as well) and instruction manuals on how everything in the bunker works. As well as many other miscellaneous items and tools.  
Orson and Chilo stood at the door which guarded the other half of the storage room, and he put his thumb on the scanner and put in the password.  
07172056  
“Is that the password to everything in here?” Chilo asked.  
“Yes.”  
“What does it mean?”  
“It’s a date. The day of the first invasion, July 17th 2056. “He said, opening the door.  
The password protected area of the storage room was filled with shelves and shelves of strange items, with seemingly no connections to each other. Things like a pile of empty travel bags, some stuffed animals, lots of batteries, watches, earrings, locked diaries, golden ink fountain pens, snow globes, music boxes. The place was full of useless junk and useful junk and valuable junk and just flat out bizarre junk. There was also a small trap door labeled “provisions.”   
“What’s that word mean?” She pointed at the trap door.  
“Oh, it means ‘food’ pretty much, that’s where all the non-garden stuff comes from. Like the dried crackers and sealed stuff. Whenever I run out of that stuff in the kitchen I replace it with this stuff.” He said. Chilo was impressed at the amount of preparation that went into making this bunker, turning her attention away from the trap door.  
“What’s the rhyme and reason here? What qualifies as being important enough to store in the super-secret storage closet club?” Chilo asked, picking up an empty glass ball where the inside was colored with cloudy dark red and light blue waves.  
“Unless they decide give their stuff away, whenever someone in a bunker dies, it all comes here.” He said, digging through a box full of metal and plastic objects.  
Chilo slowly put the colorful orb pack on its groove on the shelf. She looked at all the items.  
“If you suddenly get a traveling caravan of perfectly 7 unproblematic healthy people, and they live in here with you until you die, what would you want to come in here?” Chilo asked.  
“That’s a dark question, I’m not sure.” He said, stopping his shuffling through the box.  
“My necklace.” He said, and then continued his search.  
“I thought so.” Chilo continued snooping through the ominous funeral museum.   
She also spotted a small locked box. A part of her wanted to find the key and open it, but she thought against it. That would probably be in bad taste. She did, however, carefully picked it up and looked at the bottom, where a professional-looking carving that read “Annie” in cursive with a small black heart next to it hid behind a thin blanket of dust that Chilo swiped away.  
Her heart kind of sunk when she saw it, and realized all of these used to belong to actual people, who lived on the planet, in the bunker, their entire lives. She started to understand why they decided to preserve their personal belongings, as there was probably a large shorting of them. And yet, they had a community, they obviously had friends and enemies and loved ones in here, no matter how small the world, it was their entire world.  
She looked at Orson, who picked out what he had been looking for, seeming satisfied with his work.   
She thought about how he only had that one necklace, how the people who walked out on him probably took everything that didn’t already belong in the bunker or was in here, in the funeral place. She felt a strange kind of anger at those people.  
“Chilo?” He asked, snapping her out of her trance.  
“You okay?” He asked.  
“Yeah, it’s just dark and dusty in here. What’s that?” She asked, looking at the small handheld device in his hand.  
“The…Extra temperature device. You asked for it remember?” He looked at her, almost concerned.  
“Ah! Yeah alright, get that, some batteries, and uh, ooh, that knife, and some screws. Oh! And you have to let me at the heat thingy after this, I’m shivering.” She said.  
“You got it.” He said, gathering everything. Chilo looked at the wall where she saw something she missed before.  
“Uh, one last thing. What’s that?” She pointed to a strange contraption built into the wall, with a bunch of numbers on slots. The only reason she noticed it is because one of the slots clicked and the number changed.  
“That’s the clock. It shows the time, day, month, and year.” He pointed to it.

It read 0-9-1-5-2-2-0-8"1-0:3-7"THU"  
Orson explained it, and how a normal calendar would work, but they didn’t bother to make calendars 200 years in preparation, so the bunker builders just made a built in calendar and clock powered by gears and the bunkers power source.  
“THU, what does that mean?” She asked.  
“It means it’s Thursday.” He said.  
Both of them suddenly thought of the same thing at the same time, with similar feelings on the matter, but didn’t think the other one felt the same.  
“How long until I can leave?” She asked, and Orson’s stomach seemed to sink a little bit.  
“…” He stared at the slot-based calendar for a long time.  
“Orson.” She said quietly.  
“15 days. 2 weeks and a day.” He said  
“Then it’ll be October. It’ll have been one month since you’ve been in here.” He said, assortment of items in hand, walking out.  
She sighed, looking at the pile of backpacks. She grabbed one, then followed him out, closing the door behind her.


	6. Chapter 6

The sky was black, but the sun was hot and bright. Orson was afraid that his skin would turn red, and burn.  
He was at the lake, but it wasn’t a lake of water, it was a lake of sand. There were still people swimming around in it however. Orson looked on in disapproval. They did it to themselves, ruining all the water. The sun was too bright, and he couldn’t focus on who was playing in the water, otherwise he would turn them in.  
“Kid?” Chilo appeared in front of him, blocking the sunrays from the invisible sun. Orson was sitting on a couch.  
“Oh, it’s you.” Orson looked at her, and offered her a bottle of strawberries, but then wondered how they got in there, with the small opening and all.  
She laughed at him, and took the bottle, tapping on it as she walked towards the sand lake.  
Orson took a second look at the area. There was grass all around, but, “all around” was simply a large block of land covered in grass surrounding the sand lake. But after a while away from the center area it simply dropped off, plummeting into the blackness that complimented the sky and horizon.  
In the center of the sand was a tree stump, rotten, dried, and all around a dead piece of wood, the soil on which it grew shriveled into loose sand. Orson wondered if there would be any bugs in the stump, and as soon as he said that, Chilo was beside him again, wiping the filth off her.  
“There are bugs in the lake,” She said, looking at the people with no faces of voices in the pit.   
“Do they know?” Orson asked her.  
“They do, but they won’t get out until they get their share of fun.” She said, shaking her head, sitting beside him, shaking the bottle of strawberries, but they were too big for anything to come out.  
They both sat in silence and watched as one by one, the people began disappearing, suddenly dropping under the surface of the sand. Every time someone disappeared, there was a soft knocking sound, as if the people’s feet hitting the bottom of the pit. It got louder with every person.  
“The bugs can do that?” Orson asked.  
“No, that’s probably the snakes.” Chilo asked, hitting the side of the bottle, getting frustrated.  
“There are snakes in there?” He asked, leaning forward, getting a closer look.  
“There are all kinds of things in there, it’s just the way it is.” As the last person got dragged under, it made a very loud knocking noise.

 

“Orson, kid, wake up, jeez.” The muffled sound of Chilo’s voice outside of his room accompanied by the sound of her knocking on the door.  
“Uh, coming!” The first words of the day slurred and sloppy, but still understandable.   
“Open the door.” She said.  
Orson groaned as he got up, and opened the door.  
“Come on, I got something for you.” She said, walking away. Orson ran his fingers through his hair and got his clothes on.  
“What’s all this?” He asked, looking around. There were a few objects on the table in the social area.  
“Not yet, kitchen first,” She urged him to the kitchen, where more stuff covered the table. A large glass bottle, filled with some kind of liquid, and two plates of a strange, clear substance with fruits on the inside.  
“ These are products of the still. It’s not only used for makin’ juice, after all.” She explained.  
Juice. It’s a euphemism for alcohol, Orson remembered her saying it all the time, when she was really talking about the moonshine.  
“This is called gelatin. It took me a few tries to get it right, but I made my own recipe. I used to have my own place, a lot like this, but with less electricity and a lot more asbestos. The still exploded one day when I was out and burned it down, but I still know what to do.” She explained.  
“And this,” she picked up the bottle.  
“Is the juice.” She swished it around.  
Orson’s stomach clenched up.  
“You scared?” She said, getting out two empty water bottles and a metal funnel.   
“No.” He said.   
“Ah, you’re getting better at lying, I’ve taught you well, but you’re still not as good as me.” She shrugged, placing the funnel in the bottle neck and pouring the liquid in. She gave him the small bottle full of the brown liquid. It smelled like rotten fruit.  
“This is made from fruit?” Orson asked skeptically.   
“And some nuts.” She said, pouring herself a certain amount as well.  
Orson made a face at the smell of the substance, and Chilo noticed, an amused look plastered on her face.  
“What?” He asked.  
“Watch.” She put the bottle to her lips and tipped her head back, the murky water trading places in her mouth with air. Large pockets of air filled the bottle as the liquid poured down her throat.  
“Woo!” She let out a small cry and wiped her mouth.  
“For just a few weeks-that damn good stuff.” She said, shivering for a second.  
Orson looked at her reaction then back at the bottle. He theorized that it tasted much better than it smelled.  
He took a small sip and his mouth instantly filled with a grotesque taste, and he coughed as the small amount dribbled down his throat and seemed to burn it.  
“Ack! “He made a face and took the fork next to the plate and without thinking shoveled a small amount of the gelatin in his mouth to get the taste out.  
It tasted like fruit, but had a faint aftertaste that seemed to resemble the beverage.  
“Yeah, sorry I didn’t really clean the still too good before I started making the gelatin “She ate some of the gelatin.  
“I got a bottle of water, I knew you’d be a wimp about this.” She winked, and Orson took the bottle.  
“I’m not a wimp, I’m just, not used to it yet, is all.” He shrugged, drinking the water, and eating the gelatin. The more he tasted the putrid after taste the more it didn’t bother him. Probably because it was killing all feeling in his mouth, an experience he’d never had before.  
They talked for a while, about alcohol and gelatin and other strange wonders from the outside world. The surface wasteland. The Expanse.  
“Oh yeah!” She said, after they had finished the fruity treat, she stood up.  
“There’s stuff in there.” She pointed to the social area.  
“Come on, let’s go have a lookie.” She crossed arms with him and led him out of his chair and into the circular room, where the table held some things.  
The table held a gun, a metal canister full of moonshine, and a small box connected to two little wire earbuds.  
“What’s this?” Orson asked, walking over to the box.  
“I was really lucky I finished it before you woke up. I was working on it in secret all this time but I couldn’t finish it while you were awake because you were always around the thing.” She said, flipping open the small top to reveal the knobs that were previously on the radio.  
“The…What happened with the radio?” Orson looked at where the radio was on the table. He was so distracted by all the gifts he failed to recognize it was pulled out of the table, and a sense of dread started to overcome him, and he was getting ready to yell at Chilo for destroying his radio, when she held out the two ear buds.  
“Put them in.” She said. He did.  
‘… and there was some kind of acidic liquid coming out of the metallic body. Military biologists say it’s some kind of fuel that powers the suits movements, while the power cell energizes its weapons, such as the high power electric knuckles, and the heat-rays every standard Mara solider carries. This has been Joseph Li Marton ASG radio, tuning out until next report…’ As the broadcast ended, classical music began to play.  
Orson looked at Chilo in awe as the music played, and took out his earbuds.  
“How did you do this? The radio shouldn’t work if it’s outside the table?” He looked at the empty radio hole.  
“Well, the radio itself was just connected to the power source, so I just had to replace the plug in to the places mainframe with the temperature devices battery powered, uh, thingy, I guess, and wazam, battery powered radio with earbuds respectably borrowed from a scrap pub somewhere in the Flea Lands. You keep saying you’re losing sleep over that song in your head that only plays a while after the show ends, and you keep missing it. Well now you can always have it on you, and eventually hear the song again and get it out of your system.” She took a sip from her bottle of juice.  
“And the rest?” Orson looked at the assortment.  
“A gun, for if thugs ever show up at your doorstep. Remember what I taught you about guns?” She asked. Orson nodded his head.  
“And then a thermos full of juice. I’m taking the glass bottle with me, might be worth something one day. Bunker juice. I like the sound of that. I’m also taking some seeds from the garden with me and some provisions. That okay with you?” She asked. Orson finally noticed the packed bag in the corner of the room. He looked down at the radio box. This was the day.

The First of October.

“I have something for you, too.” He said, placing the radio down and walking to his room. Chilo sat on the couch, looking at the radio, listening to the music softly play through the earbuds at a distance.  
Orson came back with a composition notebook, with the space provided for writing your name in the front instead reading ‘School’.  
“School? What’s this? Your old notes from robot-garden class or something?” She asked, opening it.  
“No, I wrote it for you.” He said, sitting next to her. She looked at him like he did when she showed him the radio.  
“You made all this? The book is completely filled up!” She said, flipping through the pages.  
“Not quite, I left spaces for you to write in. I made it the best I could, by the time you fill it all up your writing skills should be caught up with a late junior high school level. You’ll be smarter than most of the people out there.” He shrugged.  
“This is amazing.” She said, flipping through it again.  
“It’s no battery powered radio.” He said, handing her a familiar looking pen.  
“Where have I seen this before?” She asked, looking at the golden design.  
“It was in the locked off section of the storage room. I saw you looking at it. You can have it.”  
“What about when it runs out of ink?” She asked, admiring it. He pulled out the drawer from under the table, with a stack for written in journals, and fresh journals, as well as a pile of empty pens, and fresh pens. He took a few pens and a new journal and handed it to her.  
“Just in case you want to record your travels. They’re pretty intriguing. You can give it to your badass wasteland traveling protégé. I mean, if you ever get one. And you can use the extra pens for ink for your righteous tattoo gun.” He said.  
“I cannot believe you just said all that. A month ago you didn’t know what half of those words meant. I’m proud of you.” She said, grabbing his shoulder.  
“You, are my badass wasteland traveling protégé.” She said, standing up, and Orson stood up too, his eyes stung.  
“Thanks, kid, for everything. If I ever make another friend half as close as great as you, I’ll tell them all about you.” She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him.  
Orson stood there for a second, then, slowly, reached his arms up, then mimicked her.  
This was a hug, he realized. He’d seen it in stories and comics, but never thought it was as great as it was portrayed. He is now proven wrong.   
He loved coexisting with someone. A girl who could convince him to drink rotten fruit juice, a girl who made him a carry around radio, who built him a fortress of feathers and cotton, and was the only one in his dreams that had a face. A person who taught him that the world was not as simple as he thought, and told him to be his own person, and not what a computer thinks he should be. Someone who, the longer she stuck around, the more his bones popped, like fireworks in his knuckles. A girl who built a moonshine still out of spare parts, then made gelatin with it. A girl who has a noose tattoo on her hip as both a warning, and a promise.  
This girl was his only and best friend. He would never forget her, even in old age when his mind would deteriorate.   
“Goodbye, champ.”


	7. Chapter 7

Orson reached out to feel the grass, but it swayed out of his reach, just air in front of him.  
The soil beneath his feet was not loose and warm, like the sun’s personal pillow. Instead it was flat, and cold, like the entire world was simply a cube of ice, with unreachable just barely reaching out. Tall, unreachable, ice grass.  
The sky was white.

Orson woke up.  
He stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling. The grey, tiled sky of his world of 17 years.

 

The Third of October.

 

He pulled out the earbuds out of his ears, the music from the radio box suddenly transitioning from a definite world of sound to just two earbuds playing music on the surface of his pillow.  
He reached over to the box, and flipped the music off.  
Silence.  
Noise as bland as the walls it resonated on.  
Orson made a noise with his throat, to make sure that he could still talk.  
For a second he thought about making breakfast, but then it dawned on him that he didn’t make breakfast before-  
Before everything. Yesterday he read a book written by a psyche professor in the 2030’s, and found a section about depression.   
Staying in bed, inability to eat, no desire to do any kind of work, sadness out of boredom, and sadness out of nothing.   
He stood up, and stretched his arm, but nothing happened. No popping. He reached his arms up and felt a tiny, sharp crack in the back of his neck, and he let out a loud, involuntary groan, and the sheets beneath his feet that acted as his ‘carpet’, slid as he leaned forward in pain, slipping as the back of his ankles hit the bed frame, and the rest of him hit the floor.  
He laid there, not moving for a while. He could get up if he wanted to. His ankles and his elbows were still kind of throbbing from the fall, but other than that he was perfectly capable of getting up. He had only fallen a few times in his life, when he was little he used to run down the halls. Sometimes in the gym the treadmill would skip a beat and he would fall then too. But this time was different, of course. Everything was different. Again. First when-  
And now it-  
Orson let out a deep, long sigh.  
He couldn’t even think straight.

 

‘…And according to sources, there has been a mass disappearance of the military soldiers after they invaded a Maran land nest, anyone who is in the Clurd Hill area is encouraged to volunteer. Any help at all is greatly appreciated, and will go a long way to regain our country from th-‘ He pulled his earbuds out.   
He was depressed.   
Orson walked into the garden, and activated CYL.  
“Hello, Orson, it has been over a month since our last session, have you been deathly ill?” The robotic voice asked, with artificial concern.  
“No, I had company.” He responded.  
“Fantastic! Are you ready for your next session of-imaginary numbers-?”   
“Actually, I want to ask you some questions about the bunker.”  
“I will answer to the best of my ability.”   
“Is there any way to open the door even if hasn’t had the initial month-long reboot?”  
“No, I am afraid not. However, there is a way to re-write the system.”   
Orson was taken aback.   
He was just going to ask to just to say that he tried, but, were the CYL systems programmed to help the inhabitants with non-learning experiences?  
“How can you re-write the system?” Orson asked, digging deeper.  
“You must enter the temperature control room, and remove the foreign atmospherical drive. This will allow you to open the door again, as the system will not realize if the air vault has dust particles or not, assuming it clean, it will allow you to leave.”   
“…Thank you, CYL.”  
“You are welcome, Orson.”

Orson was glad, that he didn’t have to spend another month alone in this bunker. He read some manual material on the dust vents and temperature room. He gathered his things in one of the bags in advance, and looked in survivor guides to estimate about what he needed:  
Water  
Food  
Maps of the area  
A compass  
A knife

And then he packed the other stuff, which, to him, was somehow more important:  
The portable radio, and lots of batteries  
A few journals and pens  
The thermos of Alcohol  
Chilo’s gun

He went back into the garden.  
“CYL, are you going to be okay here by yourself? Who’s going to take care of everything?” He asked.  
“When you deactivate the vents and temperature, I will have access to-“  
“The temperature?” Orson asked. There was a small pause, and the humming in CYL’s mainframe made a small skip.  
“You need to deactivate the temperature controls in order to get past the vault doors.”   
“Oh, you didn’t mention that.”   
“I apologize, after such a long time without maintenance, I have become rather faulty in my access to information.”   
Orson felt bad for it for a second. It was, afterall, the closest thing to another person Orson knew and talked to for 17 years, and then a thought occurred to him.  
“CYL, would you like to come with me?” When he asked the robot this, it seemed to “think” for a long time. Much longer than robots should, but then it seemed satisfied with its calculated answer.  
“I apologize, Orson, but I cannot come with you, wherever you’re going. I must stay here, unlike the radio device you are harboring, I cannot exist on informal energy sources. I must thrive on the bunkers energy source only. I apologize.” It ended its sentence the same as it started it.  
“It’s okay,” Orson said, kind of disappointed.  
“ Walk me through everything I need to do.” Orson said.

He awoke, it was morning. CYL advised him to spend one more day in the bunker, and then he would be permitted to leave.  
Everything was in place, all the restrictions on leaving within monthly intervals have been lifted, and all that stands between him and the surface is a door.  
He got all of his things together, and got dressed.  
He put his black diamond necklace on, and as he did, something spoke to him, in a distant memory.  
‘Orson, be brave.’  
He stood at the large grey-tiled door.   
07172056  
The third door slammed shut on the outside, and the first one lifted, leaving only the glass door. He placed his thumb on the scanner, then it too opened. He walked outside. It was hotter, still inside the air vault. He walked to the third door, identical to the first.  
07172056, and a thumb scan.  
And then it opened.  
A brilliant flash of light, a warm, dry breeze, the sound of something rustling outside.  
His eyes were blinded for a few seconds, but when his eyes finally adjusted, he could see the world.  
Some dry, thin, tall grass pushed from the rough looking soil in front of the vault. Miles and miles of hills and dry, cracked soil, and thin, tall brown dull grass.  
And clouds in the sky, real, grey, poofy clouds.  
And a green sky.  
He took a step outside, in his shoes. For the first time, he touched the ground. The surface.  
For that moment, he was connected to every single thing on the surface. Every standing survivor, every radio broadcaster, every alien invader.  
And Chilo.  
Out there was his friend, his only friend.  
He was going to find her.  
He took a breath, re-adjusted his bag, then started to walk.


	8. Chapter 8

In all of the books and stories and comics that Orson ever had, it described the world as a place of life, and constant growth and change.  
But the world seemed to be stopped, somehow, captured in a terrible moment, unable to escape.  
Instead of vast plains of lush grass, there was harsh, crusty clay, with only a few plants sprouting up here and there.  
The air was dry, and hot, and the sun was brighter than Orson ever thought it to be. He remembered Chilo would talk about it at his request, but he never fully grasped just how intense it was.  
There were a few trees, and some cacti, but for the most part the landscape was a wasteland. The only wet areas were still, muddy puddles which gathered in the shade of larger rock formations.   
Then there was, of course, the green sky. Every single portrayal of the world always had a bright blue sky, but the sky was instead a light green, as if it were in a constant state of a mist, fumed from mints in the sky.  
The world that Orson was in was not the world Orson expected, but it was still the world.  
This is where Chilo was, so this is where he would search.  
He had several other goals while he was on the surface. He would find Joseph Li Marton, have proof that he was real. He would try and find the previous bunker inhabitants, show them what they left behind and who he grew up to be. He would learn so much in this surface world, and when he returned the bunker, he would return with other people, so he would no longer be lonely. He would record all his experiences up here, so the future bunker inhibitors would not be confused about the state of the world, like he is now. This was his plan.

He thought about things, for a long time, as he walked and walked, trying to find a place where Chilo would be.  
One of the things he thought about is what he would do when he found Chilo, he didn’t quite know. Mainly he would hug her again. The departure hug was the greatest feeling Orson had ever felt.  
He thought about inviting her back to the bunker, but even after spending a month inside, and bonding with Orson, she still left, and never quite told him why, so he just assumed that she liked it better out here. Surviving off her own terms. She might even have friends.  
Orson felt a small tang of jealousy at the thought of her having other companions, but he thought it was realistic. He read in a study that most people will have around 30 close friends by their adulthood.  
He just hoped that he was not just another acquaintance, but instead a close friend. One that she felt bad about leaving behind.  
He would find her, and find out.  
Suddenly, something on the dusty path he was traversing caught his eye.  
‘REFUGE’ The sign screamed in bright blue letters, with the wooden arrow pointing towards a split in the path.  
“ Guess this is where I’m going.” He began waking in that direction.

A light step, a slight step. A soft breath, a quick glance around the corner.  
The sound of leather quietly squeaking as a gun handle was gripped.  
Two distant voices, a boy and a girl, having a conversation about something irrelevant, but apparently engaging enough that they did not notice Chilo enter their safe haven.  
She had watched them yesterday, and this morning too. They were only two of them in the whole house. A three story, moderate sized abandoned house. They sat in the top story, where the wall they looked out of was knocked out, and they sat on chairs.  
One, the girl, held a long-distance rifle, and usually a murky colored bottle, while the other one was always scouting with his binoculars. They would switch every couple of hours, and after a few times switching, they would leave and another couple would replace them.  
Whatever they were guarding, or whoever they worked for, was obviously important. And like most important things in the expanse, it was up for grabs. If you couldn’t guess, Chilo was very, very good at grabbing.  
Step, step, step, step.  
She searched every room up to the one they were in silently, swiftly but thoroughly checking for this important treasure being guarded, but of course, it had to be in the room they were in. It would have been too easy otherwise.   
A light step, a light step.  
A wet spot.  
The old wood creaked as Chilo’s foot slipped ever so slightly.  
The pair looked at her.  
Trivial thoughts entered Chilo’s head. She didn’t blame herself for not asking earlier, because she had no context or reason, but she should have asked Orson if there was a word for a situation like this.  
They all looked at eachother. But after a few split seconds put together like crumbs in a pile, the girl moved first, trying to reposition her rifle at Chilo, but with Chilo’s handgun she was much faster, shooting near her hand, and the rifle fell to the ground three stories below, with a satisfying crash. Binocular boy tried running for a gun on the wall but Chilo shot him in the head, blood painting the walls, and the soul of the nameless man instantly dissipated like cold water hitting hot steel; floating into the air, impossible to regather. He was dead, and the corpse that crashed into the rotting wood was no longer his, it belonged to the world.  
“Hey.” Chilo pointed the gun at the girl, who didn’t move, frozen.  
“Don’t move.” She ordered. The girl nodded her head.  
“What are you guarding? What’s this watchtower for?”   
“I-uh…” She looked at Chilo with huge, scared eyes. Chilo sighed, her shoulders rising up and then back down in dissatisfaction.   
“There’s nothing here!” The girl blurted.  
“Then what are you guarding, then?” Chilo’s straight-to-the-point personality somehow threw the girl off. Which led Chilo to believe that she wasn’t part of any kind of gang. If you grew up in the Expanse, you should be used to being treated like nothing. This girl seemed to think that she was somebody.  
“ We’re supposed to keep everyone away from the west area.” She said, tears swelling up at the edges of her eyes.  
“…Why?” Chilo quickly glanced around the room, searching for a vault, or somewhere a vault might be hidden.  
“We don’t know, we were just paid extra to go out and keep everyone out.” She said. Chilo looked at her again. The girl covered her mouth, realizing she had made a mistake. Chilo clicked her tongue, kneeling to be on her on-the-floor level.  
“What’s in the west area?” She asked.  
“…I don’t know.” She said, a quick glossy tear shined it’s way down her cheek like a falling star.  
“I promise I don’t know anything they won’t tell us.” She said, breathing shakily.  
“Is there any food or water in here?” Chilo asked, looking around.  
The girl stared at her, breathing heavily. Chilo looked at her and made a mocking face. The girl sighed and looked to the right wall, tilting her head in it’s direction, towards a small cabinet.  
“Thanks.” Chilo stood up and walked over to it, opening it, seeing that it was empty.  
“Son of a b***h.” She turned around, pointing her gun at the girl, half crouched, holding a knife. She yelled and lunged at Chilo, but the force of her pounce was forced out of balance as a bullet entered and left her skull, causing her head to jerk back and her torso to fall on her knees, eventually all of her crippled on the floor.  
“Oh well.” Chilo sighed.  
There were a few bottles of water in the place, that was about it. Nothing interesting, the girl was at least telling the truth about that.  
She stepped outside, looking at the smashed rifle on the dusty ground. She salvaged what scraps and bullets she could to sell later, then she began walking. She was not going to get involved in whatever they were wrapped up in.  
About a mile down the road, a thought came to her.  
Awkward, she realized.  
Awkward is the word Orson would have said, when they were all looking at eachother.  
I hope that kids okay.


	9. Chapter 9

Drip, drip, drip  
Chilo’s eyes were closed, her back against the wall of the tunnel.  
As the stories go, large thin trains used to zoom down tunnels like these carrying people or cargo from one place to another. They called it a subway system. Or maybe this was just a tunnel where trains would go through. There were mixed stories. Not many people know too much about the world pre-Mara.   
She heard a strange small sound of air wooshing, and something hitting a puddle near her, and her eyes shot open, still mostly unused to the darkness. Her ears perked, her eyes darted, but her body stayed still. Chances were, whatever was living here couldn’t see her either.  
After a very long time without any noise, she realized it was probably just a drop of water falling to the ground from the ceiling, and let out an audible sigh.  
In response, she heard a loud shriek, and saw something lunge at her. She swatted it away. It was the size of a cat, but it had a weird body type. It shrieked again as it hit the opposite tunnel wall and grunted. Chilo quickly got out her gun and shot it, letting out another bullet for save measures.  
She reached around her bag and got out a flashlight, and turned it on, shining on the creature.  
“What…The hell…?” She looked at the grotesque being in confusion and awe.  
It was small, and fish-like, with tiny claws and feet. It was about 3 ft long, and it had small bat wings. It was a pale blue color, and small jagged teeth, and despite such a thin body, it’s gut was large and swollen.  
Chilo’s mind flashed to the radio Orson was listening to, about the “Mara”…  
It had two bullet holes in it, one in the fleshy part of its wing, and one in its chest. It suddenly breathed to life again and lunged again, but Chilo pressed it against the wall again with her boot to its neck, and pressed until the shrieking stopped with a satisfying series of small crunches.  
And then it’s body went limp. She removed her foot and watched as the creature slid to the floor, lifeless as any other animal when it’s shot twice and had it’s neck stomped on, but just in case…  
She got out her knife and slid it into the creature’s skull, a remarkably soft skull. She saw the creature’s stomach start to shudder, and she slid the knife into that as well. She cleaned the pale blue blood off of the knife, and watched as the shuddering stopped. The bodily fluids pouring out of the creature filled the tunnel with a bitter, yet sour smell.   
She sighed, realizing she had gotten all the sleep she would get this day. She continued moving further into the tunnel.  
Orson looked at the large, scrappy gate and wall that surrounded large structures.  
He heard voices talking behind the gate, and then rustling and some thudding as well.  
“Hey, you!” Someone called from the top of the wall, there was someone else with the man as well.  
“Who are you!” They called down.  
“My name is Orson!” He called back up as loud as he could. He was not used to shouting.  
“What do you want!” The other man called down in response.  
“I’m looking for my friend! I was thinking maybe she was in here!” He called back up.  
The two men looked at eachother and whispered to eachother.  
“Okay, we’ll let you in! But, first, we need the entry tax!” The first man called.  
“I don’t...I don’t know what that means!” Orson called back up.  
“Here’s the thing, kid, if we let people into our town, we need something of worth so we know you’re serious!”   
“Oh, that makes sense.” Orson said to himself. He slid off his bag and began searching his bag for something of worth. After he had laid out a few things, the two men opened the gate just enough to come out and see.  
“What is all this stuff?” The second man asked in kind of a disgusted tone.  
“Well, this is a notebook, and a pen. You can use it to write stuff down and draw, or, uh…This is a can of bread crumbs, this is a scrap of metal I found on the way here, and…” He searched his bag desperately for something else. The men did not seem satisfied.   
“Oh, two bottles of water.” He placed that in the pile.  
The two men looked at eachother.  
“How much, uh, water do you have in that bag of yours?” One of them asked.  
“Uh, I packed a lot to travel, like an entire pack. I drank a lot on the way here, but, I have like, 5 left.” He said, looking at them.  
“…Throw in those extra bottles of water, and uh, those empty bottle too.” The two men looked at eachother, nodding.  
‘Well, if it means finding Chilo, then…’ He began going through his stuff when someone else came through the gate.  
“Hey, you two! What’s going on!” Another man walked out.  
“Oh, we were just uh,” He looked to his partner.  
“Making sure this person’s stuff checks out!” The nodded at the man.  
“Sure. Go back to your posts.” He said. They book walked quickly back into the gate.  
“Hey,” The man crouched to be on the ground with Orson.  
“Put your stuff up, there’s no such thing as an entry tax.” He said.  
Orson felt his cheeks flush. He was embarrassed.  
“Oh, alright.” He began putting his stuff back into his bag.  
“So just anyone can go in there?” He looked at the gate.  
“Pretty much. For a few days everyone watches you, and if the community thinks you’re a threat, we kick you out. If you stay too long, you do have to get a job though.” He said, getting up, then helping him up.  
“Are you…In charge?” Orson asked the man.  
He stifled a laugh.  
“Me? No, I’m not in charge.” He seemed amused by the comment. They walked past the gate, and he closed it behind him.  
Orson looked at the place.

Large buildings and small buildings, some made entirely out of scrap, and some made out of weathered concrete and wood.  
There were a good amount of people, the place had to have been around 5 times bigger than the bunker.  
“Welcome to Uypra.” The man said.  
“Refuge to all survivors.” He said.  
“Let me show you around.”

The town of Uypra had a large garden, with strange looking vegetation Orson had never seen or read about before.  
According to the man, the place had about 200 people in living in it. With homemade and already built houses everywhere. There were bars and a small building where they taught children about the world. It was like a downgraded, bigger version of the bunker, except with no library, and no specific place to use the bathroom, and very sketchy looking showers.  
“Okay, you can stay here for now, if you want to get a better place you need to find a job. My name is Rigel if you need me. You can usually find me somewhere by the gate, my job is to keep gang members out of the place.” He said. They were outside some kind of apartment complex.  
Rigel was tall, with a golden brown tint to his skin and eyes. His hair was black, and very curly. He was wearing large, heavy looking brown pants, and a black sleeveless shirt. He had a belt holding a few miscellaneous objects and also a gun.  
“So you haven’t seen my friend?” Orson asked one more time.   
“Nah, man, I haven’t seen no one matching what your friend looks like, but I’ll ask around.” He said, walking away.  
There were so many people here. Orson grabbed the bars on the railing which lined the walkway outside all the doors. There were people talking in the rooms near him, people on the streets. So much was happening at once.  
This is what the world was like. The color of the sky didn’t change the world, people still interacted with eachother like it was normal, because it was.  
200 people in this town and it felt like 2000 to him. He knew that the world used to have 6 billion people inhabiting it, and before bunkers and the Mara, that many people interacted with eachother each day?  
There was so much to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! Thank you so much for reading my story so far! I just hope you'll stick with it, because hopefully it'll be rewarding. I have a lot of ideas and hopes for this story, and if you just stick with me long enough, I know you won't regret it. Thank you again!


End file.
